Although Maura was born in the USA, she was transplanted early to the West of Ireland when she was too young to protest. She haunted the local library (it was next door), and developed an early passion for speculative fiction. A late night encounter with a black and white horror film (Tod Browning’s The Devil-Doll) as a child gave her a lasting love of horror cinema. Ellen Ripley was her first movie heroine.

After getting a B.A. in English and History, followed by a M.A. in English at NUI Galway, she lived in New York, then Dublin, where like many arts graduates began a career in I.T.

After a number of years as a system administrator she turned freelance, and began to focus more on writing.

At that point she took a short course at Filmbase in Dublin on screenwriting, and discovered it was the perfect fusion of her love of writing with her passion for cinema.

After that she applied for the respected Clarion West Writers Workshop, in Seattle, USA. Each year Clarion West selects 18 writers from a competitive international field to prepare them for professional writing careers in science fiction and fantasy. She was the recipient of the Gordon R. Dickson Scholarship for 2006.

Since Clarion West Maura’s short stories and poetry have appeared in a number of publications in the USA and the UK.

She is the writer on two comic book series, Róisín Dubh and Jennifer Wilde, both published by Atomic Diner in Ireland. Jennifer Wilde was nominated for an Eagle Award for Favourite European Comic Book in 2012, and for the British Fantasy Award for Best Comic Book/Graphic Novel in 2014. Her short script, ‘The Nail’, was selected to appear in the Womanthology comic book anthology, with art by Star St. Germain, edited by Suzannah Rowntree, and published by IDW Publishing in March 2012.

Maura’s first collection, Twisted Fairy Tales, was published by Barron’s in the USA in February 2013. It’s a large-format hardback book, lavishly illustrated by the artist Jane Laurie. The sequel-of-sorts, Twisted Myths, featuring more beautiful art by Jane Laurie, was published in October 2013.

In May 2014 her short story ‘Bone Mother’ was optioned by the National Film Board of Canada’s Animation Studio with the view to make a short stop-motion animated film, which will be adapted and directed by Sylvie Trouvé and Dale Hayward, and produced for the NFB by Jelena Popovic.